Recently 108 students of Columbia University were arrested during the on-going protests regarding Israel's war on Gaza.
Outlook speaks with an Indian student from the university to gain more perspective from the ground.
#ColumbiaUniversity #Gaza #Israel
Outlook speaks with an Indian student from the university to gain more perspective from the ground.
#ColumbiaUniversity #Gaza #Israel
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00:00Recently, there has been a broadening of student protests across US universities regarding
00:06the war on Gaza.
00:07Today, I will be speaking to a student who is currently enrolled at Columbia University
00:14to understand more perspectives from the ground.
00:17So what are the demands of the protesters?
00:23So as far as I know, sometime around early March, like right when we were coming back
00:29from spring break, that's when a lot of student bodies were coming together and they were
00:33already discussing all these resolutions, which included your BDS reforms, which refers
00:41to boycotts, divestments and sanctions.
00:44And individually, all these because Columbia University is comprised of various schools,
00:49right?
00:50You have the law school, you have the engineering.
00:52So they voted for this resolution, which calls for divestment.
00:59So basically, they want the university to stop financially supporting Israel in any
01:05form because of what is going on in Gaza.
01:09And along with that, I think they had a few other demands about cutting off all reciprocal
01:14arrangements with the Tel Aviv University.
01:17Then the university also has international centers in other parts of the world.
01:21It's kind of like having embassies in different parts of the world.
01:24So I think they were supposed to have an international center somewhere in Israel.
01:28Not sure if it was Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, but they're like, we want that project to
01:34be scrapped as well.
01:35So these are the demands.
01:39And who are involved in the protests?
01:42That is to say, is it all students or do we have faculties and administration also participating
01:50in these protests?
01:52So as far as I know, the faculty members did show up in protesting what happened to
02:02the students last Thursday, because that's when 108 people were arrested at that point
02:07of time.
02:08So their protest was more against like, why did you arrest students because you shouldn't
02:13be doing that.
02:14I don't know if it was particularly about the situation in Palestine at the moment.
02:21But I think some faculty members are involved, but it's not as unified as the students have
02:34come up as a unified front.
02:36Okay, got it.
02:38And how's this affecting and impacting your campus life?
02:46So campus, basically, the way our university works, it's open access for all when it comes
02:52to the grounds of the university, although all the individual buildings are ID'd.
02:59But now because of this, like it's been going on since October last year, actually, where
03:04on several days, whenever they anticipated protests happening, they just restricted
03:09access to the main campus to only people who hold Columbia University IDs, otherwise, they're
03:14not letting anybody else enter.
03:16And since Thursday, that's been the case even more.
03:19So the security has like tightened a lot.
03:22There's police personnel constantly outside the gates, which was again, not a thing all
03:28these months.
03:29It's been like that for the last week or so.
03:33And we also have like helicopters buzzing over our heads.
03:36So there is tension in the campus.
03:43Okay.
03:44And on a more personal note, how has this affected your study abroad ambitions?
03:52So at this point, I have to be a little honest.
03:58The thing is, our spring semester is ending at this point, right?
04:03So I would say largely our semester has not been impacted.
04:09And the kind of program that I'm doing, I'm left to do like research papers.
04:13So I have the option of working from home anyway, or going to the library because library
04:18access has not been restricted.
04:22But for students who have finals going on, for them, it's probably a bigger challenge
04:29because their exams have been shifted online, or they're following the hybrid model, where
04:35they're mostly encouraging students to take everything from home, take these tests from
04:40home.
04:41Okay.
04:42And how are protesters reacting to like anti-Semitism comments?
04:52I think they are trying to be very clear that they're protesting against the conflict
05:00instead of really targeting any particular community.
05:05And it's probably being misconstrued by authorities that it's about anti-Semitism, but it's about
05:14the conflict.
05:15And as far as I know, there are plenty of students who are Jewish themselves who are
05:20against this conflict.
05:22So they want it to end.
05:24Thank you so much for talking with us and sharing your insights about the ongoing protests.
05:31And yeah, have a good day.